Has anyone involved in the Abdel-Fattah mess failed to act like a hypocrite or a coward or a censor or an antisemite or a straight asshole, or all of the above? I imagine such a person may exist but, for the life of me, I have not come across them.
Note that I am *not* interested in commenters providing examples from the plethora of hypocrisy and cowardice and censoriousness and antisemitism and assholeness. I am interested in the identification of anyone, and everyone, who has acted consistently and sensibly and with integrity.
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Quiet here. I didn’t know anything about the ‘Adelaide festival scandal’. First, I heard about it here in this blog post. Reading several articles about it in the press across the political spectrum presented a picture that, frankly speaking, isn’t something new. Yet again, those who loudly champion certain methods suddenly discover moral outrage when those same methods are turned on them. This elegant fusion of moral myopia and narcissism is best described as hypocrisy with a strong sense of victimhood.
” in February 2024, Abdel-Fattah signed on to a letter calling for the cancellation of an appearance at the same festival by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, accusing him of “hate speech” and “racism.” Friedman ultimately backed out of his appearance at the event.”
Yet another example of ‘free speech for me but not for you’.
Who acted with integrity? I believe Kathy Shand did.
I’m not sure Abdel-Fatteh is a hypocrite. She’s awful, but I think there’s some consistency in her awfulness.
Who is Kathy Shand?
It is hard to reconcile her position: she actively supports the cancellation of others, yet objects and claims injustice when the same standard is applied to her. That is the definition of hypocrisy. Kathy Shand, a person who spent 12 years on the board of Adelaide Book Festival. Last two years she was its chair. In the wake of controversy, she stepped down and resigned from the board. Kathy Shand donated millions of dollars to Australian culture.
OK, I’ve read a bit now. I was confused: Shand was part of the Sydney Festival, not the Adelaide Festival, which is the one that just blew up. It’s not clear from what I read precisely why Shand resigned but I’m not sure her suggested reasons were all that great. Your flourish noting Shand donated millions is irrelevant, and is just you trying to work the refs.
There is no doubt that Australia intelligentia has a strong taint of antisemitism, and any literary festival will likely reflect this. It is fair enough for any Jew, or anyone with half a brain, to be seriously annoyed by this, at minimum. If Shand felt that the taint was too strong, fair enough and fair enough to resign. But any serious literary festival should be inviting writers that challenge many and piss off at least a few. That has every good chance of straying into antisemitism, and plenty of other isms.
I don’t think the issue is literary festivals inviting antisemitic thugs. I think the issue is literary festivals inviting second rate hacks, who are invited for pretty much no other reason than that they are antisemitic thugs.
I 100% agree with this
“I don’t think the issue is literary festivals inviting antisemitic thugs. I think the issue is literary festivals inviting second-rate hacks, who are invited for pretty much no other reason than that they are antisemitic thugs.”
Try to avoid pronouns: too many “she”s, and too many controversies (which tells you something).
Regarding Abdel-Fatteh, I don’t think she claims to be against cancellation. I think she simply disagrees on the appropriate grounds for cancellation. (Of course, whatever one’s general view of cancellation, Abdel-Fatteh’s idea of appropriate grounds is plain nuts.)
I’ll look at Shand. I gather she quit prior to the 2025 Festival, but not prior to the 2024 festival, when Friedman got cancelled (although maybe it was a delayed reaction, over many such things).
In general, I hate loyalty tests. These socio battles are full of idiot attacks, where “look at what you tweeted in 2013” is considered a genuine gotcha. We’re all inconsistent and it’s not hard, and not very meaningful, for someone to twist that inconsistency into a charge of hypocrisy. It’s generally a stupid game. But here, everybody seems to have deeply, intrinsically screwed up. Adler screwed up. Abdel-Fatteh screwed up. The Board screwed up. The writers who quit screwed up. I cannot see anyone who has acted in a defensible manner, or has written anything half-sensible in defense of their actions.
But I’m curious about Shand now, even if it is only relevant for 2026 as evidence of the long-time dysfunction. I’ll look.
Thanks for this post – I must confess that I find the whole thing deeply troubling. We seem to be throwing away our civil liberties in the name of whatever is the latest perceived danger – banning this and that speech and gesture. Nuance seems to be out the window. The only thing I would say that it is very difficult to act with integrity when the blowtorch is applied like this. And having seen the insides of some controversies from within the public service, I note that the press always gets at least one detail wrong. So it’s hard to know who might have actually acted with integrity.
This was the first article (part of which I read via Nicholas Gruen) that made any sense of it all – https://thejewishindependent.com.au/randa-abdel-fattah-controversy
Thanks, JJ. The article by Olderberg (no idea who she is) to which you linked is excellent, and I think gets it right. In brief, whatever the merits of having invited Abdel-Fattah to the Festival (none), and whatever the level of Abdel-Fattah’s nastiness and hypocrisy (infinity), to have then disinvited her was insane, and the manner in which it was done was insanely insane.
At the moment I am sticking with my conjecture that no one involved in this debacle has acted with integrity.
Due to the centuries of often genocidal antisemitism people are afraid to speak the truth about Israel. Some Jewish people, sadly a majority, have internalised that and think that any speaking the truth about the state of Israel is an attack on their right to exist as an enthnic/religious group or their right to safety.
The truth is that the history of Jewery in Europe is no justification for the ethnic cleansing of a soon to be nation of people who were living under foreign imperial rule for over two milenia just at the time they were close to achieving self determination and nationhood. Israel has as much right to exist as apartheid South Africa, who are the closest analogy to Israel. Perhaps there is sympathy for Israel in Australia, Canada and USA because they are only trying to do what we did here.
Just like South Africa they will not continue to exist in their current state because unlike Australia, Canada and USA their ethnic cleansing and genocide was not as successful due to an indigenous population more resiliant to the diseases of Europe. Jewish people won’t be forced to leave and will form a significant minority in the state that is formed following the return of Palestinians still living in refugee status around the middle east.
This return, coupled with compensation/return of stolen property and a dismantaling of apartheid laws is the only solution, and will eventually be a simple solution when it rapidly falls into place like the end of apartheid in South Africa being too complicated up until Mandela was released from prison and the cards all just fell into place with a few years following that.
Abdel-Fattah is representative of the dispora of Palestinians who’s very existance makes Zionists feel uncomfortable. Wanting her people to be free in their homeland and not automatically condeming resistance movements, even if you don’t feel comfortable with their methods is the right position. That people want to condemn her for that won’t be treated well by future generations.
The festival stopped because many authors refused to attend because she was silenced.
Supporting Israel means you are supporting the continuous slaughter and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland. Supporting Palestinians returning home and being able to live in peace and equality under the law does not say anything about your opinion on the rights and freedom of Jews.
A very even-handed summary, Matthew, particularly your closing paragraph.